


The Divergent Shadowhunters

by Forever_22



Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth, Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments (Movies), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Chicago (City), F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-23 23:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10729404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forever_22/pseuds/Forever_22
Summary: Clary Fray grew up in Chicago, in the faction Abnegation, the selfless. But she was 16 now. And that meant she had to take the Aptitude Test. That meant she had to choose a faction... One of the five. Abnegation, the selfless. Dauntless, the brave. Erudite, the intelligent. Amity, the peaceful. Candor, the honest. And if she didn't fit into one of them... If she didn't succeed in Initiation, she would become one of the faction-less.When Clary's test results are inconclusive, what will she choose? Will she survive initiation of her chosen faction? Or will she become one of the faction-less?





	The Divergent Shadowhunters

**Author's Note:**

> I got bored.

Closing her eyes, Clarissa sighed and blew out the candle sitting on the table. There was nothing under it, and there was no one there in the room. It was midnight, and this had always been Clarssa's own way of remembering her birthday. 16 years. 16 candles. 16 lonely birthdays. But it was expected for the Abnegation. Abnegation, or as the other factions called them, stiffs, rejected vanity, didn't do things for themselves, and never ate anything with flavor. Even at school, when they offered to give them something like cake, none of the abnegation accepted. They weren't allowed too...  

"Clarissa? What are you doing!?" Simon, her brother, asked, jogging into the room. Clarissa looked up, before snatching the candle and hiding it from sight before he could see. He turned the corner as Clarissa stood up

"I was still cleaning up." Clarissa said. It was true, so she wasn't lying. She had to clean the wax off the table, the wax from the dinner candles as well as the one from her birthday candle. 

 Simon gave her a skeptical look as he moved to help her. "Let me do it." 

 "Simon, i can-" She cut off, knowing there was no point in trying to stop him. He would help her either way. Silently they wiped off the wax on the table before going upstairs and splitting off to their separate bedrooms. 

"Clarissa?" She turned to the sound of her name. "What do you think you'll get?" 

"Abnegation. I'm not good at much else." Simon nodded, reaching up and scratching behind his ear. "Goodnight, Simon." 

"Goodnight, Clarissa." 

 

***  
  
Clarissa hadn't gotten much sleep, she was imagining what the aptitude test would tell her... If she went to Dauntless, she'd have to be brave. If she went to Amity, she'd have to be peaceful. If she went to Erudite, she'd have to be smart. If she went to Candor, she'd have to always tell the truth. And if she stayed in Abnegation... She'd be helping the faction-less forever. So now, as Simon, Elaine Lewis, and Rebecca Lewis, Simon and Clarissa's older sibling, walked with her to the school, where she and Simon would take their aptitude tests, she was exhausted. 

She shouldn't have worried. She should have slept. Sleep is important when you have to take the test, or when you have to choose a faction. She hoped her lack of sleep wouldn't affect her results. 

 

***  
  
They were stuck in the lunch room. Nobody was allowed to be tested by their own faction, so it took longer during each factions change for the volunteer testers to get into their rooms, than it took for anyone to take their test. Clarissa's full tray sat in front of her as the dauntless were called into the testing rooms. The order, of course, was Amity, Erudite, Candor, Dauntless, and then Abnegation, and after that, everyone was sent to their next class. You told no one what you experienced, you told no one your results, and when you switched, if you de-factioned, then you never spoke about your experience in your previous faction. 

That would be hard for Clarissa. If she had to leave, that meant never seeing her family again, it meant never talking to the people who had taken her in when her birth parents died. Never talking to her best friend, her brother, again. She'd never see Rebecca or Elaine, or Simon, ever again. She wasn't allowed too... Faction before Blood. That was the rule. 

When Abnegation was finally called to take their tests, Clarissa sent a longing look to her brother as they took to their separate testing rooms. When she walked in, she immediately looked to the ground. The walls were all glass. Mirrors. Clarissa wasn't allowed to look into mirrors, none of Abnegation were... The whole, 'Reject Vanity' thing.

Clarissa reached up nervously, her hand touching the low bun twisted at the back of her head, made of her scarlet red curls. No one would know if she looked in the mirror... Other than the tester, who Clarissa now saw by the table. She had blonde hair and a raised eyebrow. Dauntless. Clarissa could tell by the tattoos lacing the girls arms. "What is it with Abnegation and mirrors?" She scoffed. 

Clarissa stood up slightly straighter, "We... Reject vanity." 

The tester rolled her eyes. "I know. My name is Lydia Branwell. Sit in the chair, and drink this." The girl, Lydia, held out a small glass as Clarissa slowly climbed into the chair beside the computer. She took the little glass filled with blue liquid and hesitated.

"What is it?" 

Lydia grinned, "Bottoms up!" She leaned down and Clarissa saw a large tattoo on the back of her neck... It was a hawk. Clary wanted to ask what it meant, but she didn't let herself. Curiosity wasn't exactly a want in Abnegation. She downed the blue liquid and set the glass back in Lydia's hand. 

Everything faded, and Clarissa was transported into a space, made entirely of glass. It was dizzying, but she soon regained her ability to see straight. There was a table in front of her, with a plate on either end. One plate had a piece of cheese, another, a knife. 

"Choose." Said a voice in her head. Clarissa whirled around, but there was no one there. She looked back at the knife and the cheese. 

"What am i going to do with them?"

"Choose!" The voice was a bit more demanding this time. 

"Just tell me what i'm going to do with them!" Clarissa replied out loud, once more.

"CHOOSE!"

She flinched, and a snarling followed the yell. Clarissa let out a gasp and turned again. There was a dog in front of her, a Doberman Pincer, and Clarissa felt her stomach twist. She looked behind her, at the table, but it was gone. She looked forward again, stepping back. She'd always been afraid of dogs... Always, especially ones that were tall, like the one threatening her now. A faint thought went through her mind though. It would only be threatening if it felt threatened. Slowly, not daring to look the creature that was capable of ripping off her arm in the eyes, she knelt down, bowing her head in submission to the dog. She blinked and the threatening dog that wanted to rip into her disappeared, replaced by a happy puppy. 

Clarissa smiled and slowly reached out to the dog, palm up. The puppy rubbed it's head in her hand, before they both looked to the left. There was a little girl, she giggled when she saw the puppy, "Doggy!" She started forward, and the puppy was replaced with a snarling dog again. Clarissa recoiled, and watched the girl's eyes widen. She started running away, and the dog followed, snarling. 

"No!" Clarissa yelled, running after the dog. She jumped, leaping on it's back. Everything went dark, before color appeared again, and Clarissa was standing once more, in a bus. She was alone, other than a man near her with a newspaper, she couldn't see his face over the paper, but his clothes were blue, like the Erudite. She gripped the pole in the center of the bus to avoid getting sent flying into the man.

She could also see his hands, they were burned and scarred, as if he'd been in some kind of fire. “Do you know this guy?” he asks. He taps the picture on the front page of the newspaper. The headline reads: “Brutal Murderer Finally Apprehended!” Clarissa stares at the word “murderer.” It has been a long time since she last read that word, but even its shape fills her with dread.

Below the headline there is a picture of a young man, and he looked familiar... But Clarissa couldn't think of why. She tilted her head to the side hesitantly, before looking away. The man's voice came again, louder, angrier. "Well!? Do you!?" 

It was a bad idea to tell him- no, a very bad idea. She could hide the shaking of her hands if she gripped the pole tight enough, could convince the man she didn't know the guy in the picture. She could shrug her shoulders, keep a straight face, but that would be a lie...

She clears her throat.  
  
“Do you?” he repeats.  
  
She shrugs her shoulders.  
  
“Well?”  
  
A shudder goes through Clarissa. Her fear is irrational; this is just a test, it isn’t real. “Nope,” She said, my voice casual, calm. “No idea who he is.”  
  
He stands, and finally she saw his face. He wears dark sunglasses and his mouth is bent into a snarl. His cheek is rippled with scars, like his hands. He leans close to Clarissa's. His breath smelled like cigarettes. Not real, she reminds herself. Not real.  
  
“You’re lying,” he says. “You’re lying!”  
  
“I am not.”  
  
“I can see it in your eyes.”  
  
Clarissa stood up straighter. “You can’t.”  
  
“If you know him,” he says in a low voice, “you could save me. You could save me!”  
  
Clarissa narrows her eyes. “Well,” She snaps, setting her jaw. “I don’t.”

***  
  
She woke up to shaky arms, sweaty palms, and a shot of guilt in her chest. She sat up straight, and she tilted her head back, seeing Lydia. She was rushing to clean everything up and put stuff away. "What were my results?" 

She didn't answer, "I'll be right back." 

"But, wait, what were my results!?" 

"That was... perplexing. Again, i'll be back." Lydia left the room and Clarissa sat back, feeling sick, her reflection pale and sickly. Clarissa covers her mouth, laying her head on her knees as she pulled them to her chest. 

How could she do poorly on a test you weren't allowed to prepare for? Did she fail it? Even though it was a test about her mind, could it be possible to fail the test? It was a test on human virtues... How was she supposed to fail a test like that?

As the moments pass, Clarissa only got more nervous. She had to wipe off her hands every few seconds as the sweat collected—or maybe she did it just because it helped her feel calmer. What if they told her that she wasn't cut out for any faction? She would have to live on the streets, with the factionless. She couldn’t do that. To live factionless is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community.  
  
Elaine told Clarissa once that people can’t survive alone, but even if people could, they wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, they have no purpose and no reason to live.  
  
Clarissa shakes her head. She couldn’t think like this. She had to stay calm.  
  
Finally the door opens, and Lydia walks back in. Clarissa grips the arms of the chair.  
  
“Sorry to worry you," Lydia says. She stands by Clarissa's feet with her hands in her pockets. She looks tense and pale.  
  
“Clarissa, your results were inconclusive,” she says. “Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more of the factions, but in your case, only two have been ruled out.”  
  
Clarissa stares at her. “Two?” Clarissa squeaked. Her throat is so tight it’s hard to talk.  
  
“If you had shown an automatic distaste for the knife and selected the cheese, the simulation would have led you to a different scenario that confirmed your aptitude for Amity. That didn’t happen, which is why Amity is out.” Lydia scratches the back of her neck. “Normally, the simulation progresses in a linear fashion, isolating one faction by ruling out the rest. The choices you made didn’t even allow Candor, the next possibility, to be ruled out, so I had to alter the simulation to put you on the bus. And there your insistence upon dishonesty ruled out Candor.” She half smiles. “Don’t worry about that. Only the Candor tell the truth in that one.”

One of the knots in Clarissa's chest loosens. _Maybe I’m not an awful person._  
  
“I suppose that’s not entirely true. People who tell the truth are the Candor…and the Abnegation,” she says. “Which gives us a problem.”  
  
Clarissa's mouth falls open.  
  
“On the one hand, you threw yourself on the dog rather than let it attack the little girl, which is an Abnegation-oriented response…but on the other, when the man told you that the truth would save him, you still refused to tell it. Not an Abnegation-oriented response.” She sighs. “Not running from the dog suggests Dauntless, but so does taking the knife, which you didn’t do.”  
  
She clears her throat and continues. “Your intelligent response to the dog indicates strong alignment with the Erudite. I have no idea what to make of your indecision in stage one, but—”  
  
“Wait,” I interrupt her. “So you have no idea what my aptitude is?”  
  
“Yes and no. My conclusion,” she explains, “is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite. People who get this kind of result are…” She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. “…are called…Divergent.” She says the last word so quietly that I almost don’t hear it, and her tense, worried look returns. She walks around the side of the chair and leans in close to me.

“Clarissa,” she says, “under no circumstances should you share that information with anyone. This is very important.”  
  
“We aren’t supposed to share our results.” She nods. “I know that.”  
  
“No.” Lydia kneels next to the chair now and places her arms on the armrest. Their faces inches apart. “This is different. I don’t mean you shouldn’t share them now; I mean you should never share them with anyone, ever, no matter what happens. Divergence is extremely dangerous. You understand?”  
  
She doesn’t understand—how could inconclusive test results be dangerous?—but she still nods. She doesn’t want to share her test results with anyone anyway.  
  
“Okay.” Clarissa peels her hands from the arms of the chair and stands. She feel unsteady.  
  
“I suggest,” Lydia says, “that you go home. You have a lot of thinking to do, and waiting with the others may not benefit you.”  
  
“I have to tell my brother where I’m going.”  
  
“I’ll let him know.”  
  
Clarissa touches her forehead and stares at the floor as she walks out of the room. She can’t bear to look her in the eye. She can’t bear to think about the Choosing Ceremony tomorrow.  
  
It’s her choice now, no matter what the test says...

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I had fun writing this chapter!!!! 
> 
> XOXO,  
> Faith Lininger! 
> 
>  
> 
> P.S.  
> Love you my Pretties!


End file.
